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 Grand Illusion - Criterion Collection DVD

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: Grand Illusion - Criterion Collection

List Price: $39.95
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Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
Audience Rating: Unrated
Binding: DVD
Brand: Image Entertainment
EAN: 9780780020702
Format: Black & White, DVD-Video, Special Edition, Subtitled, NTSC
ISBN: 0780020707
Label: Criterion
Manufacturer: Criterion
Number Of Items: 1
Picture Format: Academy Ratio
Publisher: Criterion
Region Code: 1
Release Date: November 23, 1999
Running Time: 114 minutes
Sales Rank: 22900
Studio: Criterion
Theatrical Release Date: September 12, 1938



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Editorial Review:

Description:
One of the very first prison escape movies, Grand Illusion is hailed as one of the greatest films ever made. Jean Renoir's antiwar masterpiece stars Jean Gabin and Pierre Fresnay, as French soldiers held in a World War I German prison camp, and Erich von Stroheim as the unforgettable Captain von Rauffenstein. Following a smash theatrical re-release, Criterion is proud to present Grand Illusion in a new special edition, with a beautifully restored digital transfer.

Amazon.com essential video:
It's long been one of the revered classics of international cinema, but there is no fine layer of dust over La Grande Illusion. Jean Renoir's film is just as vibrant, exciting, and wise as it has ever been. The story is set during World War I, mostly in a couple of German POW camps, where two very different French prisoners plot to escape: the working-class officer Maréchal (Jean Gabin, the French Spencer Tracy) and the upper-class de Boieldieu (Pierre Fresnay). The suspenseful backbone of the story is formed by these escape attempts, but Renoir is primarily concerned with the way people treat each other, and especially with how class and nationality inform human relations. Most compelling of all the film's characters is the aristocratic German officer von Rauffenstein, unforgettably incarnated by stiff-backed Erich von Stroheim; although he runs a prison camp, von Rauffenstein cannot help but strike up a friendship with de Boieldieu, a kindred spirit from the doomed nobility. There is nothing dewy or naive about Renoir's vision (and two years after the release of this antiwar film, Europe was plunged into another world war), yet Grand Illusion is one of those movies that makes you feel good about such long-outmoded ideas as sacrifice and brotherhood. After it won a prize at the Venice Film Festival in 1937, the Nazis declared the film "Cinematographic Enemy Number One." There can be no higher praise. --Robert Horton



Customer Reviews
Average Rating: out of 5 stars

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars - Not Goebbels favourite film
Many European artists of the 20th century had the rare privilege of knowing that their creations were important to society as they were banned by governments who disliked them (not so in today's democratic age where you can make just about any political or cultural point you like (except offend Muslims) and no one will take a blind bit of notice).

Goebbels siezed La Grande Illusion when the Nazis invaded France as he didn't take to the movie's message that war was a tragic heedless ... Read More


Rating: 4 out of 5 stars - Overrated
Jean Renoir's 1937 black and white film, Grand Illusion (La Grande Illusion), is often bandied about with Citizen Kane on the list of all time great films, but unlike that film, Grand Illusion was a commercial and critical sensation from its initial release. While both are arguably great films, neither is really within sniffing distance of any mythic top spot. Both have flaws, but Grand Illusion has more flaws than Citizen Kane and is clearly the lesser film, although it's still certainly a very ... Read More


Rating: 5 out of 5 stars - "Borders are man-made. Nature couldn't care less"
It's incredible to me that I went over 50 years without seeing Jean Renoir's "Grand Illusion," but such was the case until recently. The only consolation for all those missed opportunities to see one of the greatest films ever made is that I watched the Criterion edition, which took an old negative and, using the latest technology, turned it into a beautifully produced film.

The overriding impression from "Grand Illusion" is the absolute stupidity of war, as expressed in the lives of ... Read More


Rating: 5 out of 5 stars - THE GREAT WWI PRISON ESCAPE
The film itself is an amazing story but also the story of how the current print came to be. The Nazis stole the original print from the French as one of their first priorities at the beginning of WWII. It was considered 'Cinematographic Enemy Number One'. All showings later were from copies and pieced together with not so great quality. Decades later the original was found and is now the print used by Criterion, an almost perfect version with sharpness and clarity as if made yesterday. This is the ... Read More


Rating: 3 out of 5 stars - Retrospection on the Great War
This story is set in 1916. French soldiers are in a bar. Marechal is summoned to HQ for a mission to photograph the enemy lines. But they are shot down (off camera) and brought to the enemy officer's barracks for lunch. The war does not prevent formal manners. The officer prisoners are then sent to a POW camp. They receive packages of food to supplement their rations. Some of the prisoners are digging an escape tunnel. The details are shown; the same techniques will be used in the next war. There is ... Read More


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